A SERV Social to France – Day 3

Day 3 of the SERV Surrey & South London May Bank Holiday Weekend social tour to France logically follows Day 1 and Day 2. If you haven't read those, please go back and see them first. Otherwise, here is the next installment of what was a fantastic weekend.

The inside of the Appeva museum at Le P'tit Train de la Haute Somme

There were some woolly heads the following morning and the clouds we enjoyed the first two days had also lifted, promising fantastic weather for our day out of the saddle.

It was just 10 miles from the hotel to the railway, the last stretch of which was along a canal towpath at walking pace. Motor vehicles were not excluded but we were definitely unpopular with the dog-walking locals! We rode cautiously and courteously at walking pace but … any how, we parked up the bikes and found our way into the museum.

The weather was glorious, in fact quite hot. We wandered around the site and took in all of the exhibits before partaking of lunch on the museum mezzanine and then enjoying a train ride. The journey was quite interesting, including a long but small tunnel that doubled as an asphyxiating sauna, and a zigzag switchback that helped the line climb up the hillside before it emerged onto a grassy plateau.

Mid-afternoon saw us back at the hotel, cleaning the smuts and smudges off our faces in preparation for another short ride out in search of an evening meal, still leaving time to get back for beer at the hotel. We eventually settled on steak avec frites – quelle surprise – at the Brasserie de l’Hotel de Ville in La Place de l’Hotel de Ville in Saint Quentin. Back at the hotel, further beer-fueled silliness ensued but you really had to be there.

Today’s write up is deliberately short because there wasn’t much motorcycling done. As before, here are a selection of photographs taken by the group during the day.